University Of Colorado Campus COVID-19 Cases Impact Long-Term Care Visits
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4)- Some nursing homes across Colorado can allow visitors inside but the regulations only allow visitors in counties where COVID-19 cases are below a certain level.
For Earl Cornelius, the visits with his mother are critical for her care. She is 84 years old and in a memory care facility in Louisville, that's in Boulder County.
He told CBS4's Rick Sallinger, "Yesterday we literally left out in the cold. We tried to have a visit and it was kind of sleeting and 34 degrees."
Such facilities can only allow indoor visits if the county has less than 25 active cases per 100,000 people over the prior two weeks. Boulder County is way over that with a 76.3 figure.
A lot of those cases are coming from the University of Colorado. It has recorded 174 cumulative cases with 35 students now in isolation.
Cornelius noted, "Certainly the increase in cases in Boulder has been rather dramatic since the university came back and began reporting."
Photos have shown young people ignoring coronavirus safety measures. There is widespread testing on campus.
Scott Pribble, a University of Colorado spokesman told CBS4 last week, "Every student who lives on our campus is on our campus has to go through this once a week just to make sure multi layers so we can get in front of this virus before it takes over."
For nursing homes, there is a way around the figures. A person can visit if they have had a negative COVID-19 test result within the prior 48 hours.
But Cornelius says that's difficult for someone like him who visits his mother several times a week, "I think they missed the mark. They didn't really think through the 48-hour test results."
Getting test results in 48 hours may be easier said than done. The state points out there are hundreds of testing stations with results in just a few days.
If the rate rises significantly in Boulder County, nursing home visits could be cut off altogether.
